Let’s go back to 2007, when I wrote to many American agents. In a letter, which took me weeks to compose, I stressed my achievements until then in the first few sentences. After all, it’s not so easy to join the list of 100 most often borrowed books in libraries. And not just with one, but all three books. The books have sold in above average numbers in bookstores, too.
The first replies came so quickly that I immediately knew that the agent had not taken even five minutes to look at my book, but had sent me the standard reply. All the other replies that came later were also negative, except for one.
Although I tried to not let it get to me, it did. And fate would have it that even the one agent who wanted to read the whole book became seriously ill and retired prematurely. But I’m very grateful to her as it was because of her that I decided to have the book translated. The cost of translating a book is approximately 7500 USD (for 100,000 words).
For all those who wish to follow my example and write to agents, I recommend you read Guide to Literary Agents.
Very disappointed, I abandoned my ambitions to be published abroad. Later it became clear to me that even an American writer has a very small chance of being represented by an agent, let alone someone from a small country like Slovenia. The chance of succeeding was almost nil.
Three years later I happened to chance upon an article about how demand for electronic books was growing rapidly. I typed into Google: “How to self publish e-book?” and got extensive instructions. So I set to work. It wasn’t easy and in one of the future blogs I’ll write how I did it and what problems I encountered on the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment